HOPKINS COUNTY, KY - Can registered sex offenders use social network sites? What about bill 315?  A Madisonville sex offender has a Facebook page. I am really curious about this.

ANSWER: Facebook, as well as most other social networking sites, have a set regulation against sex offenders using their services. The Facebook registration and account security section states, without any room for error, that “You will not use Facebook if you are a convicted sex offender.”

Now, with that said, the obvious next question would be, “Does Facebook check to see if those signing up are sex offenders?” The answer is, obviously, no. There is no system set up to auto-check those signing up for social networking sites with law-enforcement listings.

House Bill 315, unanimously passed in 2005, prohibits sex offenders from logging onto social networking sites that are used by children under the age of 18. Facebook allows youth from 14-years-old and up to create accounts. What we have here is a problem solvable in two ways.

Initially, if you know of a registered sex offender that has an account on Facebook, report it to Facebook. Report a link to the offenders profile page with a statement that the individual is a registered sex offender. By law, Facebook must check the individual against the sex offender registry and bar access to the site from any registered sex offenders.

The next step is to notify local police. Through bill 315, the act of sex offenders accessing social networking sites is a failure to comply with sex offender regulations. This breach makes the sex offender in question eligible for being arrested and placed in long-term custody.

Do you have a question? Email This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it for your Letters to the Editor.

J. L. Graham
iSurf News



 

 

iSurf Local News & Community Information Affecting Madisonville and Hopkins County Kentucky. Make us your homepage and send us your local news to publish. Add your news, calendar events, or FREE classifieds easily with registration and use of our easy features at the top of the page. http://isurfhopkins.com Madisonville - Hopkins County Kentucky's homepage! All iSurf Information and Programming Rights are reserved and can be used only with proper reference and link back to this site unless otherwise released.